THE RAZER BLADE LAPTOPS are all pretty
darn sweet-looking machines. Sleek
black laptops with perfectly designed
keyboards and tiny screen bezels, and
powerful internal hardware to boot.
The Blade 15’s new Studio Edition is
no exception: a ninth-gen Intel Core i7
processor along with a Quadro RTX 5000
GPU, crammed into an impressively
slender chassis, carved from a single
block of aluminum. This laptop ditches
the usual black-and-green aesthetics
of the Blade series, though, instead opting
for a more professional silver finish.
This Blade feels like a staging ground
for turning a great gaming laptop into a
great content-creation laptop. A high-
end graphics card and fully addressable
RGB-lit keyboard can still scratch the
gamer itch, while plenty of RAM and a
large 4K touch display mean that this
laptop is well situated to handle video
editing and graphic design tasks.
Our review model of the Blade 15 Studio
Edition comes with a 15.6-inch 4K display
at a 60Hz refresh rate. That refresh
rate might be rather unexciting, but this
OLED panel brings high brightness and
dazzlingly good color that looks great
even in well-lit environments. Touch
control is a nice bonus for creatives who
enjoy quick fingertip navigation, although
the potential for fingerprint-related
troubles is high, and the Blade 15 SEIt’s time to get creative
Razer Blade 15
Studio Edition
9
VERDICT Razer Blade 15 Studio EditionSHARP Awesome screen;
great chassis design; very
solid performance.
BLUNT Runs hot; expensive; CPU is a
little limited.
$4,000, http://razer.comSPECIFICATIONSCPU Intel Core i7-9750H
Graphics Nvidia Quadro RTX 5000 16GB
RAM 32GB DDR4-2667
Screen
15.6-inch OLED 4K
touchscreen @ 60Hz,
100 percent DCI-P3
Storage 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD
Ports
1x HDMI, 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2
Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2
Type-C with Thunderbolt 3,
1x Thunderbolt 2, 1x SD
card reader, RJ-45, 3.5mm
headphone jack
Connectivity Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0
Weight 4.88lb
Size 0.7 x 9.6 x 14.0 inchesdoesn’t come with a stylus of any sort to
avoid such woes.
Physical connectivity is a winning
aspect here—three standard USB ports
are joined by a Thunderbolt 3-enabled
USB-C port, Thunderbolt 2 port, and an
HDMI port, perfect for connecting extra
monitors for workstation tasks. Using the
Blade 15 SE as a desktop replacement is
definitely viable, as high-powered laptops
like this typically chew through battery.
However, the battery life is impressive for
a workstation laptop; around four to five
hours of use, depending on software and
brightness. The lack of Gigabit Ethernet
is a shame, but not a deal-breaker.
The main downside of the Blade 15 SE
isn’t the battery or ports, then, but the
lack of a Core i9 CPU. The i7-9750H at the
heart of this is perfectly competent, but
it’s not exactly groundbreaking, and it
weakens the potential of this system for
CPU-intensive tasks. This laptop already
has an upsetting price point; Razer could
have sprung for a superior CPU.
In fairness, this system is focused
on creativity, not number-crunching.
The rest of the internal components
do the job; a high-speed 1TB SSD and
32GB of memory are good to see, with
that Nvidia Quadro GPU pulling its weight
in a big way. All that hardware generates
a lot of heat, though, and the Blade 15
SE’s twin fans clearly struggle to dealwith it. The laptop gets uncomfortably hot
after extended use, even with adequate
clearance underneath it for airflow.
The external design is, of course,
stunning. The trackpad is large, central,
and easy to use, and that keyboard isn’t
just illuminated by customizable RGB
effects—it’s very satisfying under your
fingertips, with nice large keys and
reasonable travel for such a slim laptop.
It actually looks a little small at first
glance, but that’s just because of this
15-inch machine’s large form factor and
flanking speakers, which can pump out
music at an impressive volume.
Lastly, we must bring ourselves to
address that most divisive of subjects:
pricing. The Blade 15 SE costs a tidy
4,000 dollars. Yes, it’s expensive, but
the high-end studio GPU and cutting-
edge design mean that it’s certainly not
bad value for money. Cheaper versions
are available, too, if you’re willing to
dial it back with the GPU—a GTX 1660
Ti model with a 1080p screen is only
$1,600, which is a far more reasonable
prospect. Ultimately, the Blade 15 Studio
Edition is pretty awesome; pricey, sure,
but still awesome. Now, if you’ll excuse
us, we’ve got to make some phone calls
to Razer PR to explain why we deserve to
keep it. –CHRISTIAN GUYTONBest scores are in bold. Our gaming laptop zero-point is the Acer Predator Triton 500, with an Intel Core i7-8750H,
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q, and 16GB of DDR4-2666. All games tested at 1080p at the highest graphical profile.BENCHMARKS
ZERO-
POINT
Cinebench R15 Multi (Index) 1,030 814 (-21%)
CrystalDisk QD32
Sequential Read (MB/s) 3,374 3,241 (-4%)
CrystalDisk QD32
Sequential Write (MB/s) 2,530 2,977 (18%)
3DMark: Fire Strike (Index) 13,610 15,831 (16%)
Rise of the Tomb Raider (fps) 92 107 (16%)
Total War: Warhammer II (fps) 62 78 (26%)
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon:
Wildlands (fps)^49 58 (18%)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%in the lab
82 MAXIMUMPC MAR 2020 maximumpc.com